BCS Watch Week 14: What television's Mad Men and the BCS have in common (links)

View full sizeAMCJon Hamm as Dom Draper on the television series Mad Men.

Watch any episode of AMC’s Mad Men and two realities leap from the screen.

Drinking and smoking in the middle of the day, in the middle of the office was to the characters in the 1960s-set advertising world drama as sipping a mid-day latte is to many today.

Such practices were considered the norm back then. Today, when smoking in public places is banned and even sports writers wait until after a game to have a beer, we view with amusement while watching Dom Draper kickoff a staff meeting by pouring a stiff drink and ask "what were they thinking back then?"

Likewise will future generations when examining the way we crown our college football national champions today.

Here’s a bit of easy target practice aimed at the arguments against a playoff system:

1. Too much time away from class: Right. This excuse has been tossed around for decades and is exhibit A as to the calculated attempts by some to avoid a playoff at all costs. It’s a farce. Nobody cares if players miss class just like nobody cares when basketball players miss classes during the four week NCAA Tournament.

2. A 16-playoff would be too long: Opponents of a playoff system typically use the most grandiose of examples to shoot holes in a playoff proposal. A playoff system would not have to include 16 teams. It could be four, five, six, eight, 10 or 12 and work just fine. My proposal would, detailed below, details a six-team format.

View full sizeAP Photo/Mike FuentesTCU quarterback Andy Dalton raises his arms after throwing a touchdown pass against San Diego State on Nov. 13. The Horned Frogs are undefeated but likely could be boxed out of the national title picture. Any system that leads to such travesties should be viewed as a joke.

3. No matter what, some team will be left out: Whenever someone says that a playoff system of say eight teams would mean the No. 9-ranked team would have complaints simply end the conversation and walk away. It’s like saying why fix a leaky roof when it’s only going to leak again someday. The potential complaints of a No. 9-ranked, or No. 17th-ranked team are miniscule compared to the omission of a 13-0 Auburn team from the national championship process in 2004, or a 12-0 TCU team this season. How about 13-0 Boise State last year? Or in 1994 when Penn State and Nebraska, both undefeated, never met.

Any system that eliminated an undefeated team is a joke by sheer definition of the spirit of competition. How can a team be eliminated when it hasn't lost?

4. It would kill the bowl system: Nonsense. The majority of bowl games are meaningless to anyone other than the fans of the programs involved as it is. So there’s no reason why bowl games couldn’t continue to exist while a playoff system took place.

5. A playoff system would minimize the regular season: This debate comes down to simple math.

Consider this: Under the current system there is a sense of urgency because a one-loss team is more likely out of the running and two losses is a certain death sentence from the process. So the argument is that this creates a playoff-like atmosphere throughout the season.

The problem is that if one loss all-but eliminates a team from the process then that renders that team’s remaining games as meaningless. So how exactly does that increase the number of meaningful games? It in fact decreases them.

In say an eight-team playoff format teams ranked in the top 15 would all be alive heading into the final few weeks of the season. That would increase the number of meaningful games, not decrease them.

Stanford, Wisconsin and Ohio State have played great football the past month with virtually no shot at competing for the top prize.

Plus, the playoffs itself would add to the number of “meaningful” games. Think of all the great playoff matchups we've been cheated out of in the past.

Again, it’s simple math.

Finally, why does it make sense that a loss in September should prevent a team from competing for the national title in December? Teams improve over the course of the season. How do we really know who the best team is come January when some teams were eliminated for losses suffered before Halloween?

6. You can’t get fans to travel to multiple games like they would a bowl game: This is a good point. But who says they have to? Any playoff system would include home field advantage. The home team’s fans would fill up the stadium. The hardcore road-team's fans who travel for regular season games would make it to playoff games as well.

MY PROPOSAL

My proposal employs a six-team playoff format similar to that used in both the AFC or NFC playoffs in the NFL. Let’s use the current BCS rankings as a template.

Keep the BCS system. The top six ranked teams would qualify for the playoff with apologies to No. 7 Michigan State. You got squeezed. Better luck next year and better you than an undefeated TCU team, who will likely be left out of this year’s national title game.

Based on this week’s rankings, No. 1 Auburn and No. 2 Oregon would receive first-round byes as a reward for finishing the regular season on top, thus maintaining importance for going undefeated.

Let’s say Ohio State wins, it would then play at Oregon on Dec. 18 while let's say a victorious Stanford team heads to Auburn.

The first-round losers, TCU and Wisconsin, would be paired in a current BCS bowl game.

The college final four Saturday of Ohio State at Oregon and Stanford at Auburn on Dec. 18 would be off the charts.

The two losers, let’s say Ohio State and Stanford, would be paired in a BCS bowl game leaving Auburn and Oregon to play in the BCS national championship game.

Meanwhile, all the other bowl games would still be in play for those teams that did not qualify for the playoffs.

A playoff system in college football would rival March Madness. The television ratings would be the greatest in the history of the sport and dwarf that of the current national championship game.

It would create a level of excitement and intrigue that college football has never experienced.

Imagine it for a second. And then ask this question? If we operated the described system this year would we ever turn back? No way. That in itself defines how absurd the current system is.

Just like the practices of the characters in Mad Men, the BCS system is archaic and one day, after a playoff system is implemented, will be reflected upon with one simple question: What were they thinking?